ok time for some information and analysis.
First tidbit to be aware of is that there is a strong likelihood of rain in the very northeast part of the country. It will mostly effect a lot of those fcs games up there with the ivy league schools and what not but it may also rear its ugly head in a few mainstream games. One of those games is western michigan at Temple which i have already played. This definitely lessens the value of that bet as the HUGE qb advantage could get mitigated by rain/wind. A few other games of note that are likely to be affected by weather are usf at ncstate and virginia at duke. Dogs increase in value in both of those games as well. Still quite a ways out from gameday and weather is always uncertain but you should atleast factor in what probability of weather you expect to see for those games. Would also check the clemson and s carolina home games as well.
Cincinnati -- I am loving this team in this spot at this spread. Akron is receiving a lot of undeseerved love in my opinion. I had this team rated as the worst club in the MAC conference this year in the preseason and i am unwilling at this point to concede that fact. Lets take a look at the matchup ....
Akron comes into this game at 2-2 with DD losses at wisconsin and home to ballst and DD wins at syracuse and at Army.
So their season is a tale of two cities in a way ... how they play vs the below average and how well they play vs the above average.
- Right now Akron is rated as one of the top pass defenses statistically as far as yards per game given up !!! Deceiving stat and don't let it fool you. Teams have actually been extremely efficient at passing against Akron but they have found themselves in situations where their opponents are not attempting passes, less than 20 attempts per game. When looking at past Akron games the comparable offense to cincy is ball state .... in that game ball state attempted 36 passes completing 24 of them for 300 yards. The yards against are skewed because their opponents did not attempt passes. Army attempted just 13 throws as they develoip their option attack and wisconsin got ahead very early and only attempted 10 passes the entire game. Syracuse threw for just 135 against them but the orange have one of the most anemic pass offenses in the country as well and since the cuse was averaging over 5 yards a carry against that akron rush defense there wasn't much need to throw to get the job done , other than to save time as cuse was behind early in that game. Thats the rub , cincy is going to toss it around a bit as they average over 33 attempts per game. They threw for 241 vs miami oh and 239 at oklahoma. So pretty impressive when you consider that those are two very good pass defenses.
The rush defense is a bad trend for akron as well .. cuse got 5.1 a carry and wiscy got 6.4 a carry and ballst got 4.3 a carry and army 3.3 a carry.
Cincy is averaging 4.3 a carry and again that was against some tough defenses and if you take the 25+ yards of sacks out of the oklahoma game you find that they actually rushed it for 3.4 a carry from their two main rb threats.
So i think the cincy balance is going to be VERY tough for akron to defend. This isn't army or syracuse.
When akron has the ball they are going to have to throw. Cincy is giving up less than two yards per carry against teams not named oklahoma and held OU under their normal yds/carry numbers. Akron has rushed for 4.2 a carry so far but against bottom feeding rush defenses of cuse , ballst and Army. Different animal here. And i think cincy can have success forcing turnovers with a secondary that Phil steele ahs rated as number one in the conference and listed in his top 25 in the nation , preseason.
Akron has had some success throwing the football and surprisingly , cincy has struggled holding opponents down in the passing game so far but i think akron and jacquemain will struggle some here.
lets look at some other factors.
Is cincinnati looking ahead ? I would think not. They do have a midweek road test at marshall on deck.
How much is home field advantage worth for akron ? Not much. For their home game against ball state akron had just over 9000 fans at the game ... there may end up being more bearcat fans in the stands than zips fans.
Is there a coaching advantage ? Yes. While i actually like jd brookhart of akron ( he covers a lot
) , Kelly is one of the better coaches in the nation in my estimation. He reminds me of richt in that he really gets his teams up for road games. Last year this team was 5-1 ATS on the road and won tough games vs tough opponents at rutgers and at usf. In Kellys tenure at central michigan his team was 10-6-1 ATS on the road as well. Which brings me to another point ... kelly is very familiar with the mac and akron. He was 2-0 ATS against akron at cmich with straight up wins as a dog in both games including a 31-17 win as an 11 point underdog. Since taking over the reigns as bearcat HC , kelly has played vs the mac twice and won by a combined 92-30 score.
Are there any other things that pop out here from a handicapping perspective ? yes ... punting. Akron benefited from bad punting in the army game. Take away Army's lone good punt and the black knights averaged just over 27 yards a punt which set akron up with a lot of shorter fields. The cincy kicker HUBER is simply a beast , averaging 47 a kick and it is not a fluke. This kid has power in that leg. The akron kid averages just over 37 yards a kick so we are looking at 10 yards of field postion on punting exchanges and have the kicker who can completely change field position with one boot. I don't expect to see the cincy punter much but if we do he can blast it. Now throw in the fact aht cincy has a great special teams return game and the akron fg kicker is just 4-7 and there is incredible advantage in ST for this game.
A lot to like here with cincinnati in my opinion.....
opcorn:
